Aspects of the present disclosure relate generally to shielding, such as near infrared shielding that may resist lasers.
Energy from lasers may be particularly destructive to structures such as vehicles, aircraft, buildings, sensors, and equipment. To counter such threat, shielding may be integrated with such structures, such as in windows functioning as vehicle or aircraft windshields, watercraft portholes, optical domes, face/eye protection (e.g., for welding), oven windows, architectural windows, translucent equipment covers such as camera lens shields, etc. Typically glass material portions (e.g., panes, see-through portions) of such structures are framed or set in a manner to securely support the portions, while maintaining integrity of adjoining structure, such as limiting gas transmission around windows of an aircraft or building, for example. However, if hit by a high-energy beam of a laser, the laser may heat the glass material of the window or other structure, causing the glass material to thermally expand. If framing surrounding the glass material does not facilitate the thermal expansion, resulting stresses may crack or shatter the glass material, damaging the overall structure of which the glass material is a part. Or, in other instances, heat from the laser may be localized to a small spot on the glass material of a window or other structure, causing that spot to expand relative to surrounding glass material, resulting in shear stresses and failure at the interface between hot and cool portions of the glass material.
A need exists for shielding and structures that overcome some or all of the above issues.